


These Scars (These Stars)

by excapricious



Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Crying, Drinking, Drug Use, Emotions, Fear, Friends to Lovers, Hospitals, Kissing, Love, M/M, Mild Injury, San Francisco Bay Area, Slow Burn, Smut, Talking, Teacher!Daveed, alternate universe meeting, blood tw, complicated adult emotions, tags are messy and will be added to
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2018-12-15 15:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11809203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excapricious/pseuds/excapricious
Summary: Daveed doesn't know what to make of him. He's scrappy. Not feral, that's not the right word, but… like he'd bite if you move too quick.___Rafael shows up at Daveed's door one night, alone, exhausted, too young for the heaviness in his face. He needs to get out of a situation, he says. It'll only be a few days, he says. He's still sleeping on Daveed's couch weeks later, and Daveed isn't so sure he wants him to go anymore.___Alternate Universe- as always with RPF, the events did not and will not happen, and I mean no disrespect to those I write about. Any events that happened in real life are supplemented by my imagination and shouldn't be taken seriously. Thank you so, so much for reading!





	1. Chapter 1

Daveed doesn't know what to make of him. He's scrappy. Not feral, that's not the right word, but… like he'd bite if you move too quick. No one ever trained him not to. He's skinny, Daveed notices that. Even under the baggy jeans and sweatshirts, his uniform, he's small. And the bones in his face show, cheekbones like the jagged edge of a broken glass. Blue eyes, blue, blue, blue, but only up close. From across a room, down a street, they just look dark- hungry. He chews on his lips and Daveed catches sight of a pack of cigs in his pocket. He's just a kid but he carries the worry of the world in the crease of his forehead. Daveed watches him, tracks him with his eyes. Doesn't know what to make of him. 

He's sitting on the other side of the wooden table, tracing a stain (coffee?) with a finger. He isn't looking at Daveed. His shoulders are hunched, the light from the bare bulb that hangs from the ceiling above them glinting off his single earring.

“Do you… need something to eat?” Daveed doesn't know how to talk to him. It doesn't seem like he hears, at least doesn't process. “Rafael?” He prickles at his name, flicks blue eyes up to meet Daveed’s. 

“I'm good.” His voice is hoarse. Like he's been rapping or crying. Daveed slumps in his chair, head full and confused. 

“Why are you here?” He showed up at Daveed’s door, after dark, eyes so wild and scared that Daveed stood aside to let him into the dingy one-bedroom apartment. They've met only once before, a party of a mutual friend. Rafael had a girl on his arm then, a crooked smile. His face didn't hang undernourished the way it does now. Daveed had talked to him for a while, Corona in hand, sitting at the side of a pool. Big dreams, this kid. Big goals, hands moving with a lit cigarette between two fingers as he talked. Daveed listened to some of his poems. Talented, really. Daveed doesn't see that kid now, huddled across the table. Rafael looks drained, exhausted. 

“Didn't have anywhere else to go.” Daveed sees the look on his face and doesn't push it. There's the morning for questions, for getting to the bottom of everything. 

“Is anyone… are you safe?” Am I safe? Daveed thinks. He can't harbor someone running from law. And who knows what Rafael has been up to? 

“Yeah- yes. No one’s going to kick your door down.” He snorts like he can read Daveed's mind. “I just… had to get out of a situation.” Which clears absolutely nothing up. Go figure. “Can I sleep here tonight? Please.” He adds like an afterthought. 

“Sure, yeah, yeah.” Daveed says quick without knowing why. 

“Thanks.” Rafael closes his eyes for a second longer than a blink. He looks ready to collapse. 

“Do you need anything?” Daveed drags a hand across his face. He's tired too. Rafael is studying his palms, shakes him head. 

“Thanks. Just… wanna sleep.” His shoulders stutter on his exhale and Daveed wants to reach out to touch him, comfort him. Instead he stands and walks the three feet to the sink to fill a glass of water. 

“I'll get you some blankets for the couch.” He hands Rafael the water, watches him drain it without his lips leaving the cup. 

“Thanks.” He wipes his mouth. “Thank you.”

___

Daveed gives Rafael the least-worn blanket he could find in the closet, and a squished-down pillow, points him towards the living room. It seems weird to walk him there, do any more, so he nods a goodnight and watches Rafael disappear down the hallway. Daveed listens to him thump around for a couple minutes, then sees the light click out at the end of the hall. 

He leans against the counter with a slice of cold pizza from the fridge, hungry all of a sudden, head spinning. There's someone he barely knows sleeping on his couch. Daveed's letting someone he barely knows sleep on his couch.

Not like he could have turned Rafael away. He looked so… small in the harsh porch light when Daveed opened the door. Blue eyes red. Of course Daveed let him in. 

Daveed checks the lock on the door (this part of Oakland after dark) brushes his teeth, pisses. He peers into the living room on his way to his bed. Rafael is asleep in the fetal position, fists clenched by his head, illuminated by the stripe of light that falls through the cracked-open door. He doesn't look wild, scrappy anymore. He's vulnerable. He's just a kid, dropped on Daveed’s doorstep like a package. Daveed stands at end of the hall for a long moment, looking at him. Just a kid.


	2. Chapter 2

Daveed makes a pot of coffee when he wakes up, like always, then realizes that he has no idea if Rafael drinks coffee. He puts the kettle back on so he can make tea, hot chocolate, whatever. Realizes he'll have to feed his guest either leftover pizza or dry cereal for breakfast, spirals for a moment in panic of being a bad host, before realizing that Rafael basically crash-landed here without warning and, thusly, should be happy to drink and eat whatever Daveed can provide. Right? Jesus. He doesn't get visitors enough. He'd usually go for a run now, but he doesn't want to leave in case Rafael wakes up while he's gone. Daveed doesn't know his situation, but if it's bad enough that he had to emergency evacuate to the apartment of a practical stranger, maybe he shouldn't be left alone. Daveed drinks a cup of black coffee, then another. He peeks in on Rafael a few times- he's rolled over in his sleep and is splayed out on the couch with the blanket mostly on the floor. He's still wearing everything he came in, save for his Chuck Taylors that sit on the floor at the end of the couch. Should he call someone? The friend who hosted that party? Social services? Rafael couldn't still be a minor, right? He looks young, young, but looks can be deceiving, and Daveed has never been good at reading age on a face. He'll wait to do anything until Rafael wakes up. He’ll wait to hear it all from him. 

Daveed is messing with chord progressions on a pad of paper at the kitchen table, a song he's been meaning to finish for months, when Rafael wakes up. He pads out to the kitchen all slow and sleepy, hair matted down a bit on one side. Daveed looks at him, tries not to barrage him with questions before he's even awake. 

“G’morning.” Rafael yawns, and Daveed almost laughs because he's acting like all this is completely normal. He takes the seat across from Daveed, rests his chin in an cupped hand. He looks worlds better, Daveed thinks, just from a night of sleep. Less hollowed out under his eyes, more color in his cheeks. 

“How'd you sleep?” Daveed asks, and it's awkward. What is he supposed to say?

“Good, good, thanks.” They're just looking at each other, stalemated. 

“The couch wasn't too uncomfortable?” Daveed has never been one for small talk, never been good at it. 

“No, it was nice.” Rafael eyes Daveed's mug. 

“Oh, um, do you want some coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee would be good.” Daveed is standing, but Rafael gets up faster, and it's awkward. 

“I can get it.” Rafael says at the same time that Daveed mutters, “Let me get it.” Rafael sits back down, then looks like he wonders if he should have. 

“Oh, um, thank you.” Daveed fishes a red mug from his cabinet and fills it three fourths of the way with coffee from the french press (he found it at a garage sale). He can feel Rafael watching him, discomfort palpable in the air. 

“Any cream? Sugar?”

“A little cream.” Rafael says, kind of like a question. Daveed finds the half and half in the fridge behind some Bud Lites and tops off the steaming mug. He hands it over to Rafael back at the table, sits down and pretends like he didn't see Rafael looking at his open notepad, just so he doesn't have to talk about it. 

“Thank you.” Rafael says, nose in his mug. Daveed refills his own cup and sits back down. 

“Rafael.” Daveed says to him, makes him tense. Some of the wild seeps back into his eyes and Daveed sees his fingers tighten around his mug. “No, don't- I'm not kicking you out.” Why isn't he? Daveed has a life to live, an album to write, a girl he was supposed to call back four days ago. His hands are full of his life, and he doesn't think he can carry this boy too. Doesn't think he wants to. But, Rafael lets out a breath and Daveed says “you can stay” without meaning to. 

“It won't be- it won't be for long, just…” Rafael rakes a hand through already-standing-up hair. 

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Ah. Yeah. I probably owe that to you.” Daveed shifts, sets down his coffee. 

“Yeah.” 

“You're gonna think I’m fucking awful.” Rafael half groans, half laughs it, and Daveed feels worry curl in his abdomen. Fuck. What did this kid do? Rafael sees the look on his face and raises a palm. “Didn't kill anyone, nothin’ like that.” This doesn't offer Daveed much relief. 

“What is it?” Daveed feels a little like he's interrogating him, in a police station, at a harshly lit table facing a one-way mirror. 

“Ah.” Rafael says again, rubs at his face. “It's a girl.” 

Daveed gives a little snort of exasperated laughter at this. Just a girl? Jesus. He should have expected. 

“So you crash at my place because of a breakup?” His voice is incredulous, he knows, and Rafael shrinks. 

“No, n-no, not exactly.” Damn it. Daveed came on too strong. Rafael is hunched with his arms wrapped round himself. He spooks easy, bristles into fight or flight form quick. 

“Okay, okay.” Daveed tries to make his voice soothing. “Then what?” Rafael is cracking his knuckles now, one by one. The sound makes Daveed cringe but he keeps his face straight. 

“She… I thought I loved her, y’know?” Daveed exhales. He might be here for a while. “And it was good, it was- hey, she's the one you met at the party, remember?” Daveed does. She had black, waist-length hair, the dark to Rafael’s light. They looked happy, then. He nods, prompts Rafael on. 

“So, it was good, and- we were good, but.” He cuts off, takes an almost-desperate swig of coffee. The “but” is tearing away at him, Daveed can see it. 

“But?” He asks, soft, gentle. Rafael chews at his lip, worries his fingers, stares down at the table like he's trying to cut it open with his mind. 

“Got her pregnant.” It's so quiet Daveed hardly hears. Shit. Rafael closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again shame drowns out the blue. 

“Oh.” Daveed says, because what else can he say? “So… what happened? Did her parents flip? Did yours?” 

“They don't know. Least mine don't.” Rafael looks so miserable that Daveed wants to pull him into a hug. 

“Oh.” Daveed says again. 

“I left.” Rafael’s face crumples and he swallows a sob, staring up at the ceiling with glossy eyes. 

“Shit, Rafael…” His shoulders shudder. 

“I know, I- I just couldn't- I can't, I'm not ready. I'm eighteen, can't be no father, can't-” He's spiraling. Down and down. Daveed reaches out and clamps a hand over Rafael’s on the table. Meets his tear stained eyes. 

“You told her?” Rafael squeaks out another sob, breaks Daveed’s heart when he shakes his head. 

“Just- left. Told you I'm fucking awful.” His breaths are coming in jerky gasps. Damn it. Damn it, Rafael. “I’m not ready- I,” He puts his face in the hand that Daveed isn't still holding onto. “I'm not a man, I can't be- I left her. I left her with my baby, god, I…” He chokes on the word. 

“Hey, hey, hey.” Daveed has no business comforting him, doesn't know how to even go about it. “It's okay, it'll be okay.”

“It's not.” Rafael sobs, voice like his heart is being torn from his chest. “I left. I left like a fucking pussy-ass coward bitch, I left, I. Can't do this. I can't do this!” His voice rises to a wail on the last two words, like every brick in all his walls has been pulverized into dust. He stands up, sits back down, lets out a strangled cry. 

“Rafael.” Daveed says. He's out of his depth. “Rafael, it's okay, it's…” It's not okay, it won't be. Daveed knows it, Rafael knows it. His baby will be born with a father who ran away from it, and it's not okay. Rafael stands so fast he knocks the chair over, and before Daveed can ask him what the hell he's doing, the sick, shattering crack of his fist connecting with the exposed brick of the wall washes over the kitchen


	3. Chapter 3

Daveed drives him to the emergency room at twenty over the speed limit, pushing down the thoughts that tell him “you're a black man breaking a law in the roughest part of this town”, because Rafael’s hand is bleeding all over the towel in his lap, and Daveed can't forget the scream that punctured the air the second after bone connected with brick. 

“You're okay, you're okay, we're almost there.” Daveed keeps saying, foot on the gas. Rafael is crying, bent over at the waist with one hand clutching the wrist of the bloodied one. It looks bad. All five knuckles split and weeping, fingers already purple-green with bruises, wrist limp. It looks bad. Daveed comes to a quick stop at a red light, jolting the car forward, and Rafael screams, short and bitten off. 

“Fuck, fuck, I'm sorry, we're almost there.” Jesus fuck. How is this how Daveed is spending his Sunday morning? How is there an eighteen year old boy crying in his passenger seat with his soul and his blood bared to Daveed? 

They're here, at the hospital, and Daveed skids into the first open parking spot he sees. 

“We're here. You okay? We're here, they'll help you.” Daveed kills the engine and gets out, runs around to open Rafael’s door. He's whispering something to himself that Daveed can't make out. 

“You okay?” He asks again, stupidly, though he knows the answer. Rafael nods, tears falling down to his jaw. Liar. Liar. Daveed reaches in to unlatch his seatbelt, help him out of the car. Every little movement seems to send another stab of pain through him, and he's heaving like he might throw up on the parking lot cement. “Almost there.” Daveed says. 

“It hurts.” Rafael cries, and his voice is heartbreaking, shattering. Daveed puts an arm around his waist, feeling like he needs to be held up. 

“I know. I know.”

___ 

A nurse runs over when they stumble in the doors of the ER, Rafael sagging against Daveed, his blood dripping on the floor. She helps Daveed get Rafael to a bed, deftly puts an IV in his arm as she runs through a list of questions. Daveed doesn't understand them. 

“Why'd you put that in his arm?” He asks. Hospitals make him panicky. 

“We give him antibiotics and pain medication through the IV.” The nurse answers. She has dark hair, dreadlocked and pulled into a ponytail, and red lipstick. Her name tag reads Jasmine. 

“Hear that, Rafael? You're gonna feel better.” He's crying, still, shaking and tensing as Jasmine cleans the cuts on his hands with some kind of yellow liquid. 

“I'm sorry, I know it stings.” She says to him, voice soothing. “Can you tell me your name?”

“R-Rafael Casal.” He stutters, wincing. Daveed realizes he didn't know his last name. Casal. 

“Date of birth?” Jasmine asks, marking something on a clipboard. 

“August eighth, 19- shit,” he closes his eyes, clenches his teeth, “1985.” So he's almost nineteen. Next month. There's something running from the IV into Rafael’s left arm, something clear. 

“Is there an insurance we can use, Mr. Casal?” Rafael looks at Daveed with these big, big panicked eyes. No, there's not. He shakes his head, looking at his lap. 

“I see.” Jasmine is examining his wrist, his fingers. Daveed can see that Rafael is trying not to cry in front of her. “Your parents’ insurance?” Rafael bites his lip. 

“Ah- not an option.” Jasmine’s brow furrows. 

“Alright.” She doesn't say anything else, scribbles something on her notepad and steps away from Rafael’s side. “We’re gonna get you an x-ray, okay? See what we're dealing with.”

“O-okay.” Rafael responds. He looks scared. 

“Are those pain meds kicking in?” Rafael looks at his hand like it'll tell him. 

“Yeah, I think so…” She nods, smiles at him. Turns to Daveed and jerks her head towards the curtains that close Rafael off from the rest of the room. Daveed looks at Rafael. 

“Ill be right back, okay?” Rafael’s eyes are closed, lashes glistening with tears. He nods as Daveed steps outside the curtain. 

“I just need to ask you some questions, as the person who brought him in.” Jasmine says, flipping a page on her clipboard. 

“Alright.” Daveed answers, slipping his hands in his pockets because he doesn't know what else to do with them. 

“What's your relationship to the patient?” Ah. Shit. Daveed doubts that “he stumbled in off the street last night and slept on my couch” is the answer she's looking for. 

“Um. Friend.” Jasmine gives him a look, but checks a box. 

“How'd he injure his hand?” Daveed wonders what she expects him to say. He supposes they look a bit rough and weedy, the pair of them. She could suspect a street fight, gang activity, any number of things. 

“He, uh, punched a brick wall.” Shit. Are they going to put Rafael in psyche ward for that? Jasmine raises her brows, looking for an explanation. “He received some really… bad news, about family.” Close enough. Jasmine nods, slow, and writes something. 

“Does Rafael have a history of violent outbursts?” Daveed stiffens. He doesn't know, he couldn't. What the hell is he doing?

“Well, here's the thing. I haven't really… known him that long?” Jasmine’s brows raise higher. 

“Okay, well, can you tell me if he's had any previous surgeries or injury?”

“He's going to need surgery?” Daveed asks, stunned. Oh, fuck. He didn't sign up for this. 

“Most likely, no. These are just routine questions.” Daveed rubs his face. 

“You're going to need to talk to him, I don’t know.” Jasmine flips the paper down and smiles at Daveed. She looks worn out, the same expression that Daveed’s sure is mirrored on his own face. 

“Alright. I'll be back in a minute to check in.” Daveed catches her arm as she turns to go. 

“Wait. If he doesn't have insurance, what does that mean?”

“He'll have to pay out of pocket.” She says, apologetic. Oh, fuck. He's eighteen, and Daveed is willing to bet he doesn't have a loaf of extra money tucked away. Fuck. 

“Oh, um- um. Can you put me down to pay? Can I do that?” Jasmine smiles at him, warm. 

“That's nice of you. Really. Fill out this form, okay?” She hands him a slip of paper, and she's gone. Daveed walks back to Rafael, praying to a god he doesn't believe in that he won't need surgery.


	4. Chapter 4

He doesn't need surgery, thank god and the universe and everything else, but broke two bones in his hand. One in his wrist, one in his index finger. The doctor gives him stitches (Daveed can't watch the sutures go through the skin) and puts a brace on him and tells him to take it easy and to take the pills that she puts in his good hand. Rafael looks shell shocked and weary by the time they've walked out, Daveed’s wallet $700 lighter. He winced when the receptionist told him, was thankful that Rafael wasn't there to hear. It's alright, it's alright. Just means a month or two of ramen and hot pockets for dinner, no beer. It's alright. 

“Daveed?” Rafael says, voice quiet, when they're pulling out of the parking lot. His clothes are still bloody, Daveed’s too. They look like they should be at a crime scene, not driving through Oakland in broad daylight. 

“Yeah?” Daveed answers. He's tired, stress of the morning took it out of him. 

“Thank you. Really. Thank you for everything, I never meant to be this much of a burden. I found you through Anthony, you know?” (Anthony was the friend who had hosted that party, Daveed realizes. His birthday, something.) “I knew you lived close, and- I didn't know where else to go. I didn't wanna stay with anyone who knew my girlfriend, and… I didn't have anywhere else to go. So I'm sorry. And thank you.” He sounds like he's giving confession, Daveed thinks. Rafael doesn't look much like someone who prays. Daveed used to be, not anymore. It didn't get him a damn thing in life. Took him long enough to learn that all he can count on is himself. 

“You're welcome.” He says. Tired. “It's alright.”

___

It's awkward, back at the apartment. Not like the trip to the emergency room cemented a friendship, brought them closer together and stronger than ever, none of that heartwarming tv bullshit. Instead, Rafael obviously feels guilty, offering to pay back the medical bills as soon as he can, and Daveed is the slightest bit put out, as much as he tries not to be. Being seven hundred dollars out hurts his pocket more than he'd like to admit, and even more aggravating than that, he just isn't used to sharing his space with another person. It's small for one, barely 200 square feet, and it isn't like Rafael is exactly… contained. He brought a small backpack of stuff and, somehow, his meager belongings have spread out in a thin layer across the apartment in the less than a day that he's been there. His toothbrush and hair gel in the bathroom, clothes strewn about the living room he's staying in, a notebook and a novel and a Walkman stacked on the kitchen table. All in all, a properly shitty houseguest. But an injured one that Daveed can't possibly kick out. 

He's funny, though. Smart. He's got a sharp tongue and Daveed can tell he wins arguments like a second job. Daveed didn't know half the shit Rafael does at eighteen, which feels lightyears longer than three years ago. Daveed wishes he was eighteen again. He wants a break from being a real adult to go back to being a fake one. 

They're talking about writing music, poetry, or, Rafael is talking and Daveed is listening. He's always preferred to just listen. Rafael might still be a little hopped up on pain pills, or he's just the most passionate writer that Daveed has ever met. Maybe both. 

“So, he tells me I gotta keep my shit PG to perform live, what kinda bull? That's the artistry, I tell him, it's integral, but no, no, I gotta change it if I wanna make it on HBO. And my dumbass doesn't rewrite anything before the show, so I'm retooling shit in my head as I talk! I got told off for that but you best believe I pulled it off, man.” Daveed laughs, nods. Rafael goes at a hundred miles a minute, and it's a chore just to keep up with him. 

“You were on TV performing your poems?” Daveed asks to clarify, takes a sip of brassy water. Rafael nods, slaps a hand on the table. Not the one that's broken. 

“Not that I got paid shit, not that it changed anything for me. But yeah, yeah, my mom got to watch her kid on the telly.” Daveed nods again, can't help thinking that this boy has already done more than he has. They're eating cold pizza off paper towels, the fourth meal that Daveed has managed to stretch the pepperoni-sausage pie to. 

He's used to making food last, used to pinching pennies and making it work. Growing up in the bay goes that way, a lot of the time. It works, though. Daveed makes it work. He's got a job down at the community college, teaching drama. He's the same age as some of the students, but it makes ends meet. He wonders what he'll do with Rafael tomorrow, when he has to be out the door at a quarter to six. He isn't used to having to include other people in his plans. 

Rafael winces, it's noticeable, and Daveed feels a little spark of worry. 

“Your hand hurts? Are you okay?” Rafael nods through a tight jaw, swallows with Adam’s apple bobbing. “Can you take another pill?”

“Not until seven. Eight hours between doses.” That's a good eighty minutes. Really, a shitty and painful eighty minutes based on Rafael’s tensed shoulders. 

“You probably shouldn't drink with them.”

“Probably not.” 

Daveed has half a bottle of Hennessy at the back of a cabinet, and he pours out two shots at the counter. Not that he condones underage drinking, but, it's like people say. Kids in the bay grow up twice as quick. 

Rafael downs the alcohol in one gulp like a fucking champ, and Daveed wonders how many times he's done this before. Tries to think back to how many times _he'd _done that before eighteen.__

__“That'll help.” Daveed says, refills Rafael’s shot glass with a clumsy splash of liquor. Rafael knocks it back, gasps, and slams the glass back down on the table._ _

__“Thanks.”_ _

______ _

__“I heard you tell the nurse lady that we were friends.” Rafael is slurring a little, alcohol-soft and giggly on Daveed’s couch. Daveed feels a little flushed and lit-up himself, sitting at the other end with a bag of almost-stale chips at hand._ _

__“Well, yeah, she asked what my relationship to the-” Daveed laughs. What a day. “-the patient was.” Rafael raises his brows, barks a hoot of laughter. Everything's funny, funny and overexposed._ _

__“So, are we friends?” Rafael’s drawl, that weird, almost unplaceable Oakland twist on his words, is heightened with the alcohol. He's grinning, toothy._ _

__“Yeah. Yeah, guess we are.”_ _


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a lil slow so far, but I'm trying to develop the characters and their relationship. Bear with me! <3

Daveed is hung over something wicked. Fuck. Head pounding in the dark of his room, mouth sour. The clock reads 5:20, meaning he's barely got the time to shower before he has to be on the road to the school. Damn summer workshop. Damn required student teaching hours. Damn Hennessy. 

He sits up in bed, feeling like his shoulders and head are tied down with rope. Whew. There's a rush of nauseous dizziness when he stands, steadying himself on the edge of his nightstand, but he's vertical. He's late, late and smelling like a third-rate club. 

The bathroom light is too harsh, weasels into Daveed’s skull like fingers of fire. That's the first thing he notices, the second, that Rafael is hunched over the bowl of the toilet. He retches, and Daveed swallows a gag. 

“Hi.” Daveed groans, the only word he can get through his brain and thick throat. Rafael snaps his head up, wipes his mouth with the back of a hand. He looks shit, skin sallow and eyes shot with red. 

“Hi.” He responds. “We done fucked up.” He says it so matter-of-fact that Daveed laughs. It's cut off with a wince as his head pounds. 

“Tell me about it.” Rafael reaches up from his huddle on the floor to flush the toilet, shoulders shuddering. “You okay?” Rafael gives him a dry, raised-brow smile that Daveed recognizes on him by now. 

“Peachy.” Daveed snorts again, and Rafael is halfway to a real smile before he whips his head around to vomit again. Lord. 

“I gotta shower. Gotta go to work.” The thought of standing up and talking about playwriting to twenty-odd students that couldn't care less makes Daveed’s stomach lurch again. He just wants to lay down on the cool tiled floor until it stops tilting. But the bills don't stop, so Daveed can't. 

“Okay.” Rafael mumbles between heaves. Doesn't make a move to get up. 

“Now, gotta shower now, I'm late.” He's going to be late anyway, that's unavoidable at this point. But, at the very least, he can be late and not smell like he needs a breathalyzer. Rafael turns, looking green and miserable.

“Man, do you really want me hurling all over your shag carpet? Just get in.” Daveed wants to argue, flat out refuse, under any other circumstances he would. But he's desperate, and Rafael seems too indisposed to give a fuck. 

“Oh, Jesus. I barely know you.” Daveed feels the warmth of a flush spreading on his neck. 

“It's not like I'm gonna watch. I'm gonna be puking my guts out.” Daveed sighs, conceding. He's too fucked over for shame right now. 

“Alright, fine, just- keep your face in the toilet.” Rafael mumbles something that sounds similar to “like I'd wanna look at that,” and Daveed gives him a half-nudge, half-kick to the back.

He undresses lightning fast, nausea clouding the embarrassment he'd otherwise be flaming with. Rafael is still retching, not paying him any mind. Lightweight, Daveed thinks with a snort. Though, he's young- holding his alcohol leagues better than Daveed could at that age. 

The water is cold- takes a good five minutes to warm up, and even then, it won't last if he's run the dishwasher that day- but good, wakes him up, clears his head just a bit when it hits him. Daveed can't see Rafael through the shower curtain ( which used to be white, but has aged to a dingy yellow). He lathers his hair, quick and haphazard, splashes his face. His beard is overgrown and a bit scraggly, but a trim will have to wait one more day. Jesus, he's late. Maybe he can use the story of Rafael's hand as an excuse, maybe say his car broke down. Whatever he says, he knows his boss will give him a look down his nose, click his tongue like he's scolding a child. Daveed's not sure if he's got a personal (racist?) vendetta against him, or if he's that way to everybody. In any event, he doesn't want to do anything to get on his boss's bad side. Though it's most likely too late to avoid that. 

Daveed rinses off, shuts the water off, and reaches a hand out from the curtain to grope for the towel on the back of the door. He hears Rafael vomit as he towels off behind the curtain (how does he have anything left to throw up?) and feels a stab of pity. He’ll try to find the Pepto Bismol before he goes. He wraps his waist with the towel and steps out, skin cold where the water evaporates off it. 

Rafael has his arms folded on the seat of the toilet, his face buried in them. Poor kid. Daveed steps forward to put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey. You okay?” Dumb question. He's got a broken hand and a hangover.

“I'm- fine.” It clearly takes some effort to say, and he drops his head back into his arms. 

“You be alright while I'm at work?” Daveed realizes how strange it is to say that, to extend that almost familial concern to someone he barely knows. There hasn't been anyone to be concerned about for a long time. And, really, at this point he likely knows Rafael better than half his friends. Something about a hospital visit, getting piss-drunk together, showering and vomiting in the same space. 

“Yeah, yes, I'll be okay. Go.” Daveed bites his lip, pulls the shirt he wore yesterday and slept in back over his head. It smells like liquor, smoke, but will have to do.

“You should drink water. And, uh, sleep.” Daveed doesn't know how to care for someone, but Rafael gives him a thin-lipped smile. 

“I will. Now, go, you're late as fuck.” 

Daveed sets out Rafael’s medication on the counter with a glass of water before he rushes out the door.  
___

The classroom smells like someone's too-strong perfume, and Daveed’s headache pounds through his temples as the hours drag on. He was more than glad to accept this job when an old professor offered it to him the summer after his graduation, but it's become exhausting. Daveed hopes that it's just a stepping stone that leads to what he really wants to do- finish writing a damn song. Hopefully turn out an album, tour a bit around the country. He's got dreams, dreams that don't involve dry-erase marker on his v-necks.

It's such a relief when class ends that Daveed can feel his shoulders slumping as the tension leaves them. He needs water. Water and a nap and half a bottle of aspirin. 

He drives home with bass pumping through the car and sweat trickling down the back of his neck. It's wicked hot today, middle of the summer, in a '62 Thunderbird with air conditioning that hasn't functioned correctly for a decade. Daveed could collapse. He remembers a story, an article he read somewhere about a man falling asleep behind the wheel and killing two pedestrians. He pinches his thigh, the ache jolting him.

He parks where he always does, across the street from his apartment complex, in front of a mauve car that he's never seen driven. Gathers his papers to grade from the passenger seat and puts his weight into the sticky door to get it open. Across the street, up two flights of stairs, down a hall, key in the lock, and he's home. 

"You're home." Rafael says when he swings in the door. Says it like that, like it's _their _home, like Daveed is returning back to their domestic life. He's sitting at the table with loose-leaf paper strewn about and a mug balanced on a book, giving Daveed this crooked smile. His bad hand is propped up with a ziplock baggie full of ice cushioning it. (The bit of the wall he punched has some blood on it. Daveed hadn't noticed until his way out the door this morning.)__

__"Hey," Daveed drops his backpack to the unofficial mudroom portion of the floor by the entrance, "how are you?" Rafael looks better, less like a man who spent presumably the better part of the morning throwing up. There's color in his cheeks._ _

__"I'm good, better. You? Can't believe you weren't sick, man, you've got a stomach of steel." Daveed laughs, sinks into the chair across from Rafael._ _

__"So I've been told." Daveed is sneaking glances at Rafael's papers, his scrawled writing. He catches a few lines._ ___ _

____Neglect kicks me in bed, talking 'bout "I don't love her like new"_ _ _ _

___And Jealousy, I know, must've told her that but_ _ _

___But both of them still look so much like you_ _____ _ _

____It puts a lump in Daveed's throat, surprises him. He swallows, casts his gaze down. It feels personal, and he can feel Rafael's eyes on him._ _ _ _

____"Your girl?" Daveed asks, quiet. Rafael is nodding, fiddling with his pen. He doesn't stay still, Daveed's noticed. He wants to put his hands over Rafael's, just for a moment, tell him, "you can slow down. You can rest, just for a second."_ _ _ _

____"Yeah." Rafael says, sighs. "I dunno."_ _ _ _

____"It's good." It is. Daveed keeps replaying the lines, in Rafael's slanted handwriting, in his head. It's good, packs a punch to the gut._ _ _ _

____"Thanks." Rafael smiles, a little, runs a hand over shorn-short hair. "Just... tryna get some things out of my head." Daveed nods. He gets that._ _ _ _

____"You should talk to her, man." Rafael slumps on his hand, breathes through his nose._ _ _ _

____"I don't know what to say. The hell am I supposed to? 'Sorry for leaving you alone with our unborn child' doesn't seem to cut it." He rakes his hand across his face. "Jesus. I still can't believe it."_ _ _ _

____"Which part?" Daveed asks._ _ _ _

____"All of it." Daveed gets that too._ _ _ _

____"You should talk to her."_ _ _ _

____"I can't." Rafael grimaces, hugs his broken hand to his chest. "I can't. I ghosted her, and it's for the best. I sucked ass as a boyfriend. I'd be even worse as a dad. It's good that she's rid of me."_ _ _ _

____"I'm sure you didn't-" Daveed tamps down a smile at the phrasing- "suck ass. I mean, you're writing poetry. Good poetry. You obviously care."_ _ _ _

____"Just because I care doesn't mean I didn't fucking suck. I wasn't good for her, I wouldn't be good for that kid. I'm not good for anyone." Oh, fuck. His eyes are glassy and it makes Daveed's chest ache. Rafael is crumpling in on himself._ _ _ _

____"No, stop." Daveed doesn't know what to say, how to fix this. For someone who writes, teaches a whole damn class about putting words on paper, he's coming up short. Rafael is watching the ceiling like he's trying not to cry, let his eyes spill over. "Stop, cause I can't have you breaking that other hand. The first hospital visit almost put me on the street." It seems to work because Rafael smiles and swipes at his eyes quick._ _ _ _

____"I'm not gonna punch anything. This time." Daveed reaches across the table to pat his shoulder, and it doesn't feel as stiff or forced as it would've a day ago._ _ _ _

____"It's gonna be fine." Daveed says, says without knowing, and Rafael gives him a watery smile._ _ _ _

____"Yeah. We'll be fine." 'We,' like he and Daveed are a we. Which, he supposes, is more true at this point than not._ _ _ _


	6. Chapter 6

It's been a week, a week since the Saturday night that Daveed opened the door to Rafael gnawing his lip on the doorstep. 

"I'll leave soon." Rafael had said, apologetic, more times than Daveed could count in the past week. But, at some point, Daveed's quick reassurances of "no, no, it's okay" became true. Something shifted, something Daveed can't quite put his finger on, but he's no longer bothered by it, by Rafael at his table, in his bathroom. He makes coffee, in the mornings, gets up when Daveed does most days, though Daveed insists he doesn't have to. 

"I don't mind." He'll say, writing or cooking as Daveed stumbles around, shrugging on a shirt while brushing his teeth, or rushing to complete a stack of papers to be graded.

And then Rafael offered to grade for him, rolled his eyes good-naturedly when Daveed asked if he even knows the play the students are writing the essay on.

"I'm a teen dad, not a dumbass." They'd laughed at that. "Besides, I have to start repaying you in some way." Rafael looked sheepish, tapping his pen. "I've way overstayed my welcome." He hadn't, he hasn't, and Daveed told him. But now Rafa ("call me Rafa. My friends call me Rafa.") grades papers.

It's what he's doing when Daveed gets out of the shower Saturday night, leaning over the table with his red pen, muttering to himself. He looks up when Daveed walks in, sighs with exasperation.

"I swear to god, Diggs, at least three of your students don't have a clue what "inference" actually means. It's like the goddamn Princess Bride up in here." Daveed laughs at his face, the wrinkle scowling puts in his forehead. 

"Inconceivable!" Daveed says, voice raised to counteract Rafa's groans. He loves that movie, truth be told. Watching it with Rafael would probably be a trip.

"You know, I should get a job." Rafa comments as Daveed opens the cabinet in the kitchen. They're low on food (not that it's ever particularly well stocked), but he finds a box of Rice-a-Roni that he could fry some eggs over for dinner. 

"What, is grading sub-par essays not fulfilling your soul?" Rafa snorts.

"Well, I need my own clothes and shit." Daveed's lent him some old t-shirts and shorts, which he has to belt in rather comically on his skinny frame. He also took the liberty of buying a pack of boxers and socks and leaving them on the couch. "And I'll have to find a place to stay for real." He sounds stressed, and Daveed doesn't even have to look at him to know he's got a tooth hooked in his lip.

"Man, you know you really can stay here for a while?" Daveed means it, doesn't know why he does. He turns to look at Rafa, sees his face soften. 

"Thanks, Diggs. Thank you." He runs a hand over his head - the buzz cut has grown out a bit - and smiles. "I am gonna find a job, though. I am. So I can buy food, y'know, pull my weight around here." Daveed smiles back. 

"Okay. Otherwise, I'ma have to start feeding you stale Raisin Bran for dinner." 

"Fuck. I fucking hate raisins." That makes Daveed crack up, and he still isn't used to laughing with somebody. It's nice.  
___

Another week later, Rafael is gone when Daveed arrives home from the university. Job hunting, a note on the kitchen counter, scrawled out in his chicken-scratch writing, says. Daveed smiles at the torn-out piece of paper, a warm glow of pride flushing him. It's strange, the way he feels, proud like it's his brother, his best friend, his significant other. Pride that comes from seeing something you've taken care of grow. They take care of each other. 

Daveed walks to the market on the corner, the month's paycheck finally putting some weight in his wallet. It's hot, late July sun thickening the air. The soles of Daveed's shoes, black and white Vans, are wearing thin, and he can feel the warmth of the concrete through them. He's going to buy some real food, nothing that even slightly resembles instant oatmeal or noodles. He's going to buy real food and cook a meal for them. 

There's a blessed burst of cold air when Daveed pushes the door of the market open, stepping in onto the linoleum. He likes this bodega, likes the orderly shelves of boxed food and the bins of produce, likes the old woman behind the cash register who knows him by name, knows everybody. 

He puts spaghetti and tomato sauce in his basket, a block of Parmesan cheese as an afterthought. He's fancy like that, after all. Salad greens, a couple of apples, bananas. A box of chocolate rice krispies, a carton of milk, half and half for coffee. Coffee! A bag of dark roast, found at the back of aisle five. A rotisserie chicken, because they're on sale and Daveed's watched his mom stretch one of these to six meals for a family of four. Back to the drink aisle for a six-pack, the cheapest one they sell. If Rafa gets a job he should be able to celebrate. Olga behind the counter gives him a wide smile when he sets his basket down.

"You've got company, Mr. Diggs?" 

"Uh huh, ma'am, a friend is staying with me." Olga hoots, takes the wrinkled fistful of cash he hands her.

"Your mama taught you manners, huh, boy?" Daveed grins, pockets the change she gives him. 

"She sure did." His mom taught him a lot. Everything he knows. 

"Diggs?" The voice is coming from behind him, and he turns towards it. 

"Anthony!" Daveed hasn't seen him since that party, and he's tan and lanky as ever, smile wide and bright. They hug, hands slapping backs. "What's goin' on, man?" 

"Ah, not much." He's holding a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, cradling them like a baby. "Just picking up some stuff." 

Daveed and Anthony met in college, a frat party freshman year. He'd drunkenly fallen on Daveed at the pool table, spilled some shitty flavor of Schnapps on his t-shirt, and the rest was history. He's sweet, in a puppy-dog-excitable way, the kind of guy who's had tons of girlfriends. Not because he's a womanizer, but because he has more love to give than most of them can handle. He's always got a blunt in his mouth or his pocket, always laughing loud and easy. 

"How are you, bro?" Anthony waves over Daveed's shoulder at Olga, throwing her that boyish smile that moms love.

"I'm good, I'm alright." Daveed answers. "Rafa is staying with me." Anthony's face goes confused, then surprised, in the space of a second. 

"He is?" 

"Yeah, didn't you give him my address?" 

"Yeah, I did, but I thought it would be a night or two. Christ, I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean-"

"No, it's fine." Daveed cuts him off. "I really don't mind having him." Anthony looks a little incredulous, and Daveed takes a spark of offense on Rafael's behalf. 

"Pippa aborted the kid." Anthony says, casting his voice down to a murmur. It takes Daveed's brain a hot moment to connect all the information, and when he does, his stomach jumps. 

"Oh. Is she going to tell him?" Daveed doesn't know how to respond to this. He doesn't know the girl, Pippa.

"Ah, I doubt it. She made me promise not to tell him. So _you _can't tell him either." Anthony slips a blunt out of his pocket, puts it back when Olga clears her throat pointedly.__

__"I can't not tell him! He's living in my crib, it'll come up."_ _

__"Don't, Diggs, c'mon. She doesn't want him to know, she doesn't want anything to do with him." Daveed's chest pangs, feels for Rafa, feels for the whole situation that the kid has tangled himself up in._ _

__"He's not a bad kid, Ant."_ _

__"I know that, I love the guy. But Pippa was my homegirl first, y'know?" Daveed nods, drags a hand over his face._ _

__"I won't tell him. But he's all torn up about it, feels like shit."_ _

__"That's something, I guess." Anthony replies, and there's the uncomfortable stalemate of two unspoken but different opinions clashing in the air._ _

__"He broke his hand." Daveed supplies, unsure of why he is but feeling the need to defend Rafa._ _

__"What? How?" Anthony's brows furrow, and Olga is watching them with a drama-loving smirk on her face._ _

__"He was telling me what happened and freaked out, punched the wall."_ _

__"Punched the wall?" Anthony looks like he's trying to connect something. "Shit! Did you take him to the ER? And pay for it?"_ _

__"Um, yes?" Daveed is freaked out, just a little bit. "How'd you know that?"_ _

__"Jasmine!" Anthony snaps his fingers like he's beat a Jeopardy contestant to the answer._ _

__"Who?" Daveed asks, thoroughly confused._ _

__"The nurse! Right?" Daveed remembers her, then, with her braids and red lips. "I'm dating her!" _Oh. _____

____"Oh!" Daveed is laughing, because it's just like Anthony. He's dated everyone and their sister in this town. "So she told you about us?"_ _ _ _

____"Uh huh. She didn't know who you guys were, obviously, but she tells me 'bout her patients. She thought y'all were dating." Anthony's face is crumpled in laughter, but it gives Daveed a bit of a shock to the system._ _ _ _

____"What? Why? We're not dating." Did it seem like they were together? Daveed feels uneasy, suddenly. Anthony must notice, stops laughing._ _ _ _

____"Oh, just cause you said you were his friend, but she said it seemed like a lie? And you paid. I don't know, man, Jaz is a gossip."_ _ _ _

____"Seemed like a lie cause I'd known him for half a day at that point! And I paid cause he's eighteen, doesn't have insurance, shit." Daveed sort of hates himself for jumping into defense mode like this. Just doesn't want people getting the wrong idea._ _ _ _

____"Aight, man, I got you." Daveed feels flushed, spun up. Anthony nods at him, claps his back. "I gotta get going."_ _ _ _

____"Okay, okay, catch you later." Daveed takes his bag of groceries, nods his goodbyes._ _ _ _

____The heat of the air outside feels almost claustrophobic to him now._ _ _ _


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just lots of ~feelings~ and confusion about feelings, enjoy!!

"Daveed!" Rafa bangs the door to the apartment open, always so oversized and alive in his actions. "Guess what!" Daveed is boiling water for pasta in the one saucepan he has, dug out from the back of a cabinet. He turns, sees Rafael's shining face and contagious grin, feels his own mouth slip into a smile though an odd sort of jumpiness still gnaws at his gut. 

"You got a job?!" Rafa nods, does a half-jump-kick sort of thing in the entranceway that makes Daveed cackle.

"I got a job!" Daveed whoops, meets him in the middle of the room with a fist bump. 

"Where?" 

"I'ma bag groceries at the store on 75th. It's not much, but the pay's alright..." 

"Man, that's great!" They're standing still, now, looking at each other, and maybe Daveed should hug him, but what Anthony said still has him shaken. 

"You alright?" Rafa asks, that wrinkle in his brow reappearing. Daveed smiles, shakes it off with a nod. 

"Yeah, yes. I'm happy for you, bro." Rafael softens, and Daveed thinks it's a nice thing to see. Worry visibly leaving someone's face. "I'm making pasta." He adds, hooking a thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen. "And there's beer." Rafa's eyes light up at this, make Daveed laugh. 

"Thank you! You didn't have to do all this." 

_I wanted to _. Daveed thinks, but doesn't say.__

__"Good thing you actually got a job," comes out instead._ _

______ _

__Daveed can't sleep. His sheets are twisted about his legs, and it's hot, and his head is swimming. Every minute that they spent in the same room made it harder to not tell Rafael, to not say _"oh, and, your ex aborted your baby" _. He deserves to know. Doesn't he? Doesn't he have the right to know?___ _

____His bedside clock reads two in the morning. The town isn't asleep, not yet, and Daveed can hear the rumble of cars going by, an occasional shout. Once, either a firework or a gunshot. Which one is supposed to echo? He needs to piss, gets up with his mind still going full throttle._ _ _ _

____He knows his way through the hall in the dark, knows which creaky floorboards to avoid. He peeks into the living room when he passes it, makes out the dark shape of Rafa on the couch. He's an installment on that couch now. It's hard to call to mind the image of it without him, without the blankets that he haphazardly tucks in each morning. It's hard to call to mind being in this apartment alone._ _ _ _

____Daveed relieves himself, stares down his reflection in the mirror as he washes his hands. He looks the same as he always does- wide nose, full brows, deep skin pulled over cheekbones and temples. Hair a mess from hours of restless tossing in bed, standing out even more so than usual. Dark circles like neon signs under his eyes- noticeable, attention-drawing. He doesn't sleep enough. Doesn't drink enough water, doesn't make enough money to worry about things like sleeping and drinking water. He's tired. Rakes a hand through his hair and shuts off the light._ _ _ _

____He sleeps, finally, fitfully. Dreams of nameless places and swirling scenes with Rafa in the middle of them._ _ _ _

________ _ _ _

____Daveed races out the door for work the next morning, because every time he looks at Rafael's face he can barely stop himself from saying it. From telling him what Anthony said, about Pippa. About the baby (the bundle of cells. Daveed doesn't know if it even qualified, yet). And Rafa senses that something is up, the way birds can feel a storm coming. Daveed feels him feeling it, but neither of them say a thing beyond usual morning pleasantries, and so the air in the small space turns thick and prickly. For once, Daveed is glad for the stuffiness of his car._ _ _ _

____The day drags in the same way it always does, and by his free period, Daveed is ready to drop. He's so _drained _, emptied out. The sort of bone-deep tired that coffee doesn't fix. It's hard to focus in class, and he goes back over the same slide in a presentation about adding life to dialogue twice, to snickers of the students.___ _ _ _

______His mind is a mess- he's never been a good secret keeper, never a good liar. And if it comes down to where his loyalties lie, that's easy, that's Rafa. He doesn't know Pippa, has never met her beyond that party, doesn't have a reason to preserve her trust in him over Rafael's. But he told Anthony he wouldn't tell. It all feels like they're back in high school, muddled in the middle of drama and gossip and secrets. As if Daveed wasn't over that while he was actually in school, now he has to relive it._ _ _ _ _ _

______And, then, there's the other thing. The thing about Anthony's girlfriend, Jasmine, thinking that he and Rafa were together._ _ _ _ _ _

______Daveed doesn't have anything wrong with it, nothing at all. His close friend in high school, Jon, had a boyfriend, for a while, and there wasn't anything wrong with it. But this town, this city, can be... unforgiving. And Daveed doesn't need that, doesn't need anything more that's complicated in his life. He doesn't need people thinking that._ _ _ _ _ _

______He's stressed and worn-down by the time he leaves the school, and the thought of going home and dancing around Rafael is too much for him right now. So he takes a right instead of a left at the stop sign by his street, not sure where he's going but knows he needs to be somewhere that doesn't reek of the influence of the person he's hiding things from._ _ _ _ _ _

______Daveed ends up at the cemetery, because it's quiet, and because he's like that. He doesn't find it off putting, just appreciates the loneliness of the space. He used to come here a lot- got three, four friends with headstones here. He kneels down in front of each of them as he walks through, smooths out the sparse grass that surrounds them with his palms. Doesn't pray, but closes his eyes and tells something, somewhere, to take care of them._ _ _ _ _ _

______It's a gray day, fitting, and Daveed breathes in the sky as he walks the paths, feet tapping a rhythm into the cracking concrete. His head is too full, makes him feel like he's drowning in it. He gets like this, sometimes. His English teacher (the woman who made him want to write) sent him to the school counselor once, junior year. She tossed around words Daveed didn't really understand, names of medications. He just smiled, nodded. As if his family could afford a bottle of pills for their fucked-up kid. And, anyways, he's fine. Fine._ _ _ _ _ _

______Daveed walks the perimeter of the yard three times, till he's sweating and dry-mouthed and longing for the water bottle that sits in his car. He drives home, sits in the car across the street from the building because he isn't sure he's ready to talk to anybody. Flips open his phone to check the time and is met by a string of missed calls. The number is his home phone._ _ _ _ _ _

______Ah, shit. Rafael._ _ _ _ _ _

______Daveed's been gone longer than he thought-it's a good two hours after he usually gets home. And he's scared the kid. Shit._ _ _ _ _ _

______He slams the car door, walks faster than usual up the concrete steps, fits the key in the lock too quickly and misses. Tries again and gets it open, open to see Rafael's face, eyes like saucers, holding the home phone like a lifeline._ _ _ _ _ _

______Then Rafael breathing out like he hasn't since he came home from work to find Daveed gone. Then the _yelling _.___ _ _ _ _ _

________"What the fuck? I called you. I called you so many times!"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"I'm sorry," is all Daveed can manage._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"I was so scared! Call me a fucking pussy, but- I thought you were dead! You motherfucker, I thought you'd crashed your car, I thought-"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"I'm fine, I'm here, Rafa, I'm sorry." Daveed is shellshocked at this reaction, at the level of care that's pouring off Rafael in waves that flatten everything around him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"I convinced myself you were dead, or in a cell somewhere, I don't-" Rafael's face is flashing through emotion after emotion, anger simmering under it all._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"I'm okay, come on, 'm fine- c'mon, Rafa, why you flipping out?" It's the wrong thing to say, and Rafael's eyes go rage-bright. Daveed sees the boy that showed up at his door. Scrappy. Feral. Hungry, jaded look on his face._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"I'm not- flipping out, I'm fucking-" his jaw is working, and Daveed reaches out to touch his arm. Rafael spins away, leaves Daveed cold with confusion. "-ah, fuck you, man!"_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________"Wh- Rafa-" Before Daveed can turn to him, concoct a sentence, the door to his apartment slams, Rafael on the wrong side of it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short but dramatic!

Daveed needs to sit down. He's stunned, by the reaction, by the impulse he has to run out into the stairwell and grab Rafael and shake him until he can see that Daveed is whole and real and safe. 

"Rafa!" He yells through the closed door, head spinning. What the hell was that? Yes, Daveed should have checked his phone, should've let him know he'd be home late, but... what the _hell_ was that? "The fuck, man, I'm fine!"

Daveed can't make sense of it, can't sort it out in his clouded head. He's self-sufficient, and Rafael knows that, and there wasn't a hint of a reason for him to worry. But, he did. And Daveed is equal parts gobsmacked and flattered by it. Rafa _cares _, that much is clear. And Daveed should go get him back.__

__There's a weight fighting him as Daveed tries to push open the door- Rafa sitting, hunched in on himself, on the other side of it. He looks so small, shrunk down, and it scares Daveed._ _

__"Raf," he breathes out, relieved, as Rafael scrambles up, "you're here. Man, come on, I'm back. I'm sorry I didn't call, I was just-" Daveed stops short when he sees Rafa's face._ _

__"Shit, wait, are you- crying?" Rafa's red-nosed and glossy-eyed, looking like Daveed hasn't seen since that frantic drive to the emergency room. It terrifies Daveed. Rafael isn't a crier. He's not a yeller either, and something is wrong. Rafa's face darkens, anger and embarrassment evident on his features. He drags a palm across his face, glowers at Daveed._ _

__"No." His voice is rough. Face-to-face, Daveed can see the tear tracks on Rafael's cheeks, born into ruddy skin. There's a mole on one that Daveed has never paid attention to, stubble on his chin. Blue eyes. Snarling teeth._ _

__Daveed hugs him. Feels him start to fight in his arms, pulls him into his chest until he goes limp. Hushes Rafael with the same noise that his mom would whisper in his ear when he cried as a child. Rafa starts to shake, a birch branch in a storm, and Daveed holds him in the stairwell. _Shh-sh-sh-shhh.__ _

______ _

__When he stops crying, he twists out of Daveed's arms- a fish on a line, writhing to get free. Daveed lets him go, drops his arms to his side in heavy-headed confusion._ _

__"Man," Daveed says, quiet. Rafa has his hands shoved in his pockets, his gaze boring down into the concrete. They don't make eye contact. "you okay?"_ _

__"Yep." He says, voice rough, dark. "Yes." Daveed doesn't believe him, doesn't want to push him._ _

__"Okay," Daveed says. He’s watching Rafa watch the floor and work the muscles in his jaw like he’s chewing gum. “It was nice of you to worry.” Daveed adds, voice quiet._ _

__“Shouldn’t fuckin’ need to worry about you.” His tone isn’t ice anymore. He just sounds exhausted. “Got enough to worry about.”_ _

__“I’m sorry.” Daveed murmurs, again. He can tell that Rafa is working up to start talking, mad fast. It’s strange, Daveed thinks, how he knows things like that about him, but not his mom’s name. Not where he went to middle school, if he had a dog growing up, his favorite flavor of ice cream. He doesn’t know Rafael’s middle name but knows how he looks when he cries, when he throws up, when stitches are being pulled through his skin. And he knows the way he takes his coffee, how many sips it takes him to lose the bleariness in his eyes, the things that’ll make him crack his knuckles, the things that’ll make him gasp laughing. Daveed knows the way his eyes spark when he’s on the very edge, how they’re sparking now._ _

__“I gotta worry about this job, gotta worry about Pippa- about the _baby_ , man.” Daveed’s stomach flips. “I was thinking, and maybe once I get some bank from the store I can, I don’t know, call her up. Apologize. Tell her I can support ‘em now, that I wanna support ‘em. You think she’d accept that? Think she’d take me back?”_ _

__Rafael looks so desperate, so young, and all Daveed wants to do is tell him what he wants to hear. Tell him that everything hasn’t fallen apart, that he could go back to them, that there’s a kid to go back to. He can’t._ _

__“I don’t- know.” Rafael knows something is up, knows immediately. He’s so fucking smart, Daveed thinks, too smart for his own good. His brows shoot up._ _

__“What?” Doesn’t help that Daveed’s eyes betray him every time. He’s a shit liar, shit. “Daveed. What?” He’s sparking again, practically putting off heat. He’s _volatile_ , like an element that reacts with air. _ _

__“Nothing.” Daveed says, weak, can’t lie but can’t figure out how to say it._ _

__“Fuck this, what is it?” The fluorescent light of the stairwell bounces off Rafa’s earring, makes his skin look sallow. Daveed swallows. “You know something, don’t you?” Too smart._ _

__“Rafa...”_ _

__“What happened?” Daveed can’t tell if he’s about to start crying or swinging his fist (the one that’s not still in a cast. Daveed makes a mental note to take him to get that checked out)._ _

__“I don’t...” He’s not supposed to tell._ _

__“Fuck! Fuck you!” Daveed has never taken that from someone before. But he’ll take it from Rafa, who’s got the right to fall apart, though it sets his chest burning with a hurt anger. Rafael has a hand in his hair, looks like a madman. Daveed is shrinking._ _

__When Rafa moves, fast as lightning striking something down into ash, Daveed doesn’t have time to throw his hands out. He’s shoved back against the cold concrete wall, Rafa’s hands at his collar, snarling._ _

__“What the fuck?” Daveed’s been in street fights before, and the head-pounding instinct to kick and scratch and throw a punch simmers up through him. He swallows it, compresses it into a shove to Rafa’s chest, pushing him back. “Get off me! Fuck!”_ _

__Rafa stumbles back, breathing hard. Daveed is _mad_ , he’s disbelieving, he’s ready to crumble at the look in Rafael’s eyes._ _

__“She got an abortion, man! It’s over! You ain’t gonna go back to her and have a happy little life, it’s _over_!” He doesn’t know he’ll say it until it’s past his lips, until Rafa goes white and stricken, looking like Daveed just beat him into the ground. Daveed’s heart is pounding, chest heaving. Ringing in his ears drowns out anything he’s trying to think._ _

__“Oh.” Rafael says finally. His voice is terrifyingly even. “Alright.”_ _

__“Man,” Daveed breathes. “okay?” Rafa laughs. It’s an awful, awful dry chuckle._ _

__“My dad died when I was a kid. He just didn’t come home. So, sorry for freaking out. And, thanks for enlightening me about that.” His voice cuts, drips with hurt and scathing sarcasm. It takes a minute for Daveed to understand it, and there when he does he can’t breathe, and he can’t move, can’t do anything as he watches Rafael walk away down the stairwell like he’s made of lead._ _


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been very busy and I hate it! I want more time to write!

It takes Daveed too long to force his muscles to move again, too long, so by the time he’s stumbled down the stairs and out into the street, Rafael is nowhere to be seen. He runs like he hasn’t since high school track team, up and down the block and around the corners, scans the streets all the way to the bodega until he’s breathless and sweat is stinging in his eyes and panic is crushing his chest. 

“Rafa!” People walking past are looking, a woman pulls her son along faster. Daveed doesn’t care. “Rafael Casal!” Top of his voice isn’t loud enough. Damn it. Damn it. Daveed slows to a stop against a telephone pole, curses under his breath as he fumbles for his phone. Remembers Rafa doesn’t have one, and shoves it back in his pocket with a gasp of frustration. 

He yelled at Rafa. He yelled, shoved him off, when he was scared and shaking with eyes still red from crying. And now he’s gone. Daveed did this. 

And his dad, his dad, oh god. Daveed can’t imagine, can’t dream of the fear he must feel every time someone is a moment late to walk in the door. He understands, now. Horrible, horrible puzzle pieces have fallen into place, and he understands. 

Rafael has been left alone by too many people in his life, and now Daveed has driven him off too. He bends over and dry heaves above the asphalt, stomach sick from sprinting and with anxious self-disgust. 

He has to fix this. He has to bring him home. 

___

He calls Anthony, first, while walking back to the apartment feeling dizzy and weak from the exertion in this heat. A voice he doesn’t recognize, not Anthony’s, says “hello?” after the fourth ring. 

“Ah- hi,” Daveed pants, out of breath. “is Anthony there? Oh, yeah, this is his friend, uh, Daveed.”

“I know, got the caller ID. It’s his girlfriend, Jasmine.” As in, nurse Jasmine. Of course,

“Oh, hi.” Daveed says again, stupidly. “We met at the hospital, remember? I brought in the kid with the broken hand.” The line is silent for a moment, like she’s trying to put two and two together. Daveed knows the feeling. 

“Oh!” She says, finally, recognition in her voice. “I remember you two!”

“Yeah, well” Daveed reaches the stairwell, takes a good look down the hallways he passes to make sure Rafa hasn’t snuck back in. “that kid is what I need to talk to Anthony about.” 

“Why, is something wrong?” She sounds genuinely concerned, which is nice. Must be a nurse thing, Daveed thinks. 

“He was staying with me and, uh, he sort of... ran away? I don’t know if it counts as that, but, we kind of had a fight, and he’s gone, and I’m worried, I don’t know...” Daveed is talking too much, too fast. “So I wanted to know if Anthony had seen him. Rafa. I know they know each other.”

“Shit,” Jasmine says as Daveed pushes open the already-askew door to his apartment. “I hope he’s okay, damn. I think I’d know if he’d gotten in touch with Ant, but, I’ll check with him. He’s in the shower right now.”

Daveed breathes out, wipes sweat from his forehead. 

“Okay. Okay, thanks, Jasmine.”

“Sure, yeah, I’ll have Ant call you back.” Daveed hangs up without a real goodbye, drops his phone to the counter. All of Rafa’s shit is still here, his creased-up notebook splayed open facedown on the table. He’ll come back, right? He’s got to come back, for his things, for a place to stay, for Daveed. He’ll come back. 

He doesn’t come back that night. Daveed sits up, at the kitchen table where he sat that first night when he heard the knock on the door. He doesn’t want to go to bed, in case Rafael returns, in case he doesn’t have the key Daveed gave him. He sits up because he doesn’t think he can sleep, not in the yawning emptiness of the apartment without Rafa’s breathing warming the air of the living room. 

Daveed finally retreats to his room, eyes heavy with delirious exhaustion, after the analog clock above the dishwasher shows three in the morning. He’s struck with the feeling that he can’t move one more muscle, not today, and falls restlessly asleep, fully clothed on top of the blankets. 

Waking up is like a kick to the stomach, knocks the wind out of him. It’s barely an hour and a half past when he collapsed on the bed, and Daveed feels like death defrosted in his half-broken microwave. 

He slogs out of bed, makes coffee without thinking about it, is half dressed before he decides that he just. Can’t. Not today. Back to the kitchen in jeans and one sock, for his flip phone and a cup of thick coffee. He dials the school’s number in bed, coughs weakly into the phone when the secretary picks up, promises to send sub plans, and falls back into an agitated coma. 

When he wakes again, afternoon sun is coming through the window, and the coffee is cold and sour-smelling on his side table. Daveed sits up and calls, “Rafa?”, though he knows deep down that he isn’t here. There’s no answer. 

Daveed goes out again to look for him, to no avail. He checks back streets and record shops and restaurants. He got a call back from Anthony, confirming what Jasmine said about him not knowing anything about it. There’s no trace of Rafael in the muggy air. 

Daveed heads home, drinks a beer. He goes to grade a half-finished stack of papers, and is inexplicably stopped in his tracks when he sees Rafa’s notes in the margins- snarky commentary, scribbled smiley faces, greasy fingerprints. Daveed shakes his head, pulls an unmarked one from the pile. It’s not like Rafa’s dead. So why does it feel like that?

The rest of the evening goes by like molasses. Daveed feels like he needs to be moving, can’t dislodge the unsettled feeling from his chest. He showers, stands with his face under the stream as it goes from cold to hot to scalding to lukewarm. He leans against the tile wall and plays with himself with routine efficiency to dissuade his mind from running. It works for a moment, then leaves him feeling more pathetic than ever, more pathetic than he felt staring at the graded papers with his chest caving.

Daveed was good at being alone until he wasn’t. He was good at not worrying about anyone else until this fucking kid weaseled his way into Daveed’s life and changed him. It makes him so angry that he throws the bottle of shampoo across the shower, stares at it helpless when it hits the tile and falls against the floor. The hell is he doing?

What if Rafa’s hurt? What if he had a run in? All the snarls and sparking eyes in the world can’t distract from the fact that he’s young, he’s skinny, he’s a target. What if he’s laying in a ditch somewhere, his last breaths drawing the dusty heat past his teeth? It’s paranoid, but Daveed can’t shake it, and he can’t shake the terrified anger the thought brings. He kicks the shampoo bottle, feels cold through all of a sudden. 

Nevertheless, he stays in the shower even after the water becomes nothing more than an icy trickle. The weak spray hits his shoulders and face, keeping him grounded, keeping him sane. He thinks again of that counselor visit in high school. Thinks again about how he’s fucked up, how this isn’t how someone normal would feel. There’s no comfort in that half-formed thought.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all!! Thank you for still being here reading my ramblings! I haven’t gotten to responding to comments, but I want you guys to know that they makes my heart so, so happy and warm. Thank you so much. I hope you’re enjoying this.

Daveed gives up a week later. Not because he wants to, but because thinking about Rafael out there, maybe alone, maybe unsafe, that cast still on his wrist and that burning hate for Daveed still in his eyes, makes Daveed feel so sick and dizzy that he has to just stop. He tears around the apartment, dumps everything of Rafa’s that he can find into a black plastic trash bag. The notebook, the walkman, socks and hair gel and the red pen he chews on. Daveed can’t look at it lying out anymore like he’s just in the next room. He can’t. He ties the top of the bag, one, two, three knots, but can’t bring himself to take it out to the dumpster behind the building. Because there’s still a chance he’ll return, right? There’s still that chance? Daveed pushes the bag to the back of his closet, gathers up the tangle of sheets and blankets on the living room couch that haven’t been touched since Rafa last slept there eight nights ago. 

He stops and laughs on the stairs down to the laundry room, arms overflowing with ratty linens, because he realizes this feels like the aftermath of a breakup when it really couldn’t be any different. He’s still laughing, thinking of what Jasmine said to Anthony, of the fact that she’d thought they were an item when in reality Rafael can’t stand the sight of him. Funny.

The laundry room is empty and sad, dank, with mildew edging the walls. Daveed starts his load quick as he can and leaves, not wanting to be there, not wanting to be anywhere. His chest deflates a little when he opens the door to his apartment again, to it looking just as it has before Rafael crash landed through the atmosphere a mere month ago.

He’s gone.   
___

Daveed’s life has fallen back to how it was before. He gets up, goes to the school, would rather be anywhere else than here teaching students who would rather be anywhere else. He goes out Friday night, with Anthony and Jasmine and their friends Lin and Oak. 

They pull up in front of his building, beckon him down to the street with a smattering of honks. Daveed squeezes into the beat-up car, in the backseat on the left side next to Lin. They’ve never met before, but Daveed recognizes him from Anthony’s description (“kinda small dude, crazy-ass eyebrows, goatee, genius”). They exchange pleasantries, shake. Lin seems like the kind of guy who laughs a lot and sleeps next to nothing. And it must be Oak on his other side, muscular and deep-voiced with a blinding grin as he says Daveed’s full name. 

“Yep. That’s me.” Daveed curses himself silently for being an awkward fuck, and says hello to Jasmine and Anthony (he tries not to notice the more-worried-than-not way they’re both looking at him). 

Anthony smokes as he drives, which is somehow endearing. The music is loud, and the windows are down, and Daveed leans into the breeze like a dog and tries to clear his mind. Blank slate. Because the night is warm and, look at that, Oak is sliding a flask out from his waistband, and fuck Rafael and fuck worrying.

Daveed takes both the blunt and the flask when he’s offered, and lets the warmth replace everything else. They spill out of the car behind a third-rate club, and Jasmine is in heels that tower and make Daveed laugh because he can’t believe she can walk in them. Anthony takes her hand, and the five of them press in through the door as Lin exchanges a complicated handshake with the bouncer. 

“Y’all come here a lot?” Daveed asks, has to shout a little over the bass-booming music he can feel in his teeth. 

“Yeah!” Jasmine responds, already dancing against Anthony, who looks overjoyed at it all, at having her butt pushed up against him. Lin is a hilariously awkward dancer, seeming ten times more gawky as he undulates his hips on the dance floor. He makes it work, though, a smirk on his face as he bumps hips with a cackling Oak. Daveed can feel himself loosening up. He might be nervous and awkward but, despite the crowds, these clubs feel like his element. Music booming, too dark to make out faces, the first sips of alcohol in his blood. 

“Dance with us, Diggs!” Anthony calls out, his head on Jasmine’s shoulder from behind, arms wrapped around her waist. She’s a good dancer, moving like she actually knows how to. Makes Anthony look good by proximity. Daveed decides, what the hell, and jumps into the fray, letting Lin spin him like they’re doing the salsa. 

The lights are bright, hot, like the vodka round that Oak brings over in Daveed’s throat. It feels good. Daveed feels good, light, for the first time in what feels like an eternity. He takes another shot, and another, and he’s dancing, with his friends, with pretty girls in tight dresses. 

He’s in the bathroom without remembering walking there, falling onto Anthony by the sinks in helpless laughter as Ant rolls a blunt in his right hand, effortlessly. He’s at the bar, tilting his head back so the liquor can light up his insides and warm him through. He’s on the dance floor under the strobing lights. Anthony and Jasmine disappear. Lin says something about getting dick that isn’t at all that funny, most likely, but that sends Daveed and Oak into peals of laughter that rival the music. 

Drunk drunk drunk. Happy. Closest thing to happy he’s felt in a while. So what if it’s an illusion dusted up from the dregs of alcohol? Everything ends, but for now, he’s right here in the middle of it. 

___

Daveed wakes up without knowing why he has. It takes a second for the phone ringing to force its way through his fuzzy head, for his heavy eyes to open, for him to realize he’s buck naked and tangled in the sheets with a girl asleep next to him, a girl he barely recognizes from last night. Ah, shit. Shit. What time is it? Just getting light in the room, but even the dim rays of sun send pulsing pain through Daveed’s temples. His stomach is sour with vodka, lurches when he rolls over. 

He pushes himself up on his elbows, lets his head drop down between his arms as he tries to steady his stomach with a series of breaths. God damn it. He looks over at the woman in his bed, sleeping serenely with the sheets pulled most of the way over her bare chest. Her curling, dark hair is loose over the pillow, and Daveed remembers, through the fog, how it felt against his skin. He doesn’t recall her name, how they met, how they got back to his place and into the bed together. 

The phone is still ringing, ringing, ringing from the kitchen, cutting into Daveed. He struggles to the edge of the bed to swing his lead-weight legs over, feet hitting the floor. It’s hot as hell in the room, like the building’s weak air-conditioning kicked it in the night, and it smells of sex and alcohol. 

Daveed grabs his boxers and jeans off the floor, climbs into them unsteadily and fights with the button in his fingers that feel like they aren’t moving in sync with his brain. The woman rolls over, sighs, and Daveed stills in nervousness until she settles back into sleep. He’s never been good at one night stands, just because he hates the morning after, the awkward conversation that feels endless. He stumbles from the room, feeling along the wall for balance. Jesus, he’s never drinking again. He wonders where the others are, when he parted from his friends. Wonders how many goddamn drinks he had. 

And how long does that fucking phone ring for? He grabs it off the wall and breathes a gruff “Yeah?” into the receiver. He just wants to shower and sleep and maybe puke a bit. The room is spinning. 

“Is this the residence of Mr. Daveed Diggs?” The voice on the other end is cold, professional. It startles Daveed, sets an anxious shiver off in his spine. 

“Yeah- yes, that’s- he. This is he. Me.” 

“My name is Dr. Odom. I’m calling from the Highland General Hospital.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Hey. Hey!” Daveed shouldn’t be yelling at her, but his vision is white with panic, tunneled like the thousands of years of evolution that’ve given him the ability to see peripherally have got down the drain in a split second. The woman in the bed groans and rolls over, squints at him like she remembers about as much as the night before as Daveed does. 

“Hi...?” She mumbles, furrowing her brows at Daveed as he tears a hand through his hair, feeling so weak-kneed that he stumbles to the edge of the bed and sinks into it. Breathe in, breathe out. The voice of the man on the phone still reverberating in his skull. “Is everything okay?” 

“Y- no, fuck, no- you gotta go.” She sits up in bed, crosses her arms over her chest.

“What the hell, man?” Daveed’s cradling his head in his hands, so sure that he’ll throw up but unable to move to get to the toilet or a trash can. He can’t, he can’t get a thought past his throat.

“I need to go... hospital, you need to- go, please.”

An image flashes through Daveed’s mind, then, and it’s so awful that it jars him into hasty, haphazard action. He grabs last night’s t-shirt from the floor, hauls it on over his head. Gets up through the wave of nausea to hunt down shoes as the woman talks, the worried sounds not registering as words in his head. 

“I. I gotta go. I’m sorry.” And then he’s gone, running full speed through the hall for his car keys and his cell and his wallet, feet not moving quickly enough. He half-falls down the stairs, starts his car without bothering with the seatbelt, and tears down the street. He doesn’t start crying until he hits the corner without braking, and then he’s wailing, pounding a palm against the steering wheel because this goddamn, fucking piece of junk isn’t going fast enough and Rafael is dying across town in a hospital bed.

It’s deja vu, pulling up in the hospital parking lot. He’s sprinting across the concrete to the emergency bay, booting the doors open like a madman, standing in the coldly clinical room with hot tears on his face and his chest heaving, feeling shrunk down and helpless and far too late.

Rafa. Rafa. Rafa.

Stay alive, stay alive, stayalivestayalivestayalive please, Rafa, stay alive. Daveed doesn’t know anything, anything but that someone called 911 on a boy with a cast on his wrist and a grown-out buzzcut who’d been maybe sleeping, maybe dead on a park bench. The doctor couldn’t say what was wrong. Couldn’t say if he’d be alive by the time Daveed burst through the doors. A nurse rushes over, not Jasmine, this time, and takes his arm with a cold hand. She asks, “Are you hurt?” And when Daveed doesn’t respond, she asks it again, louder, but it’s not that he can’t hear, he wants to tell her, it’s that if he opens his mouth he’ll vomit, because, because he’s hungover as hell and he should be in bed, but Rafa, his Rafa, could be dead, dead, dead. He just shakes his head, again and again. She leads him to a bed, saying something, and Daveed should tell her, should scream, “it’s not me, it’s Rafael Casal, with brown hair and blue eyes and a cast on his left wrist, who I yelled at, who ran away from me, who could be dying, it’s _him_.”

“Can you give me your name, please, sir?” It’s hard for Daveed to understand her. She’s taking his pulse, he thinks, and he hates hospitals, and Rafa is somewhere here but Daveed can’t find the words to make the connections to get where he needs to go. 

“D-Daveed, uh, Diggs.” She’s midway through jotting it down when her eyes widen and she looks up at him. 

“Diggs?”

“Y-yeah.” 

“Are you the one they called about the boy they brought in? Your friend?” Daveed feels a panicked spark of hope in his chest, and he nods, swallowing down a lump in his throat. 

“Yes, yeah, that’s me. Rafael Casal. That’s my friend, is he, is he okay? Can I see him?” The nurse is flicking through a stack of papers. Daveed focuses on the place where two tiles meet in the white floor, trying in vain to steady his breathing. In. Out. 

“Alright, it says here that he was just given some medication-” Not dead. Not dead, then, alive and still breathing and here and alive. Okay. Okay. Daveed wants to laugh, a little bit, all of a sudden. He’s always been told he has inappropriate reactions to things. His grandma’s funeral, twelve years old. He’d been tamping down a grin of amusement the entire time at the way the sobs of the other family members sounded, too loud and too fake. Anyways. Alive. “-asleep or at least a little drowsy.” The nurse’s voice fades back into Daveed’s recognition. He nods at her. 

“So I can see him?” She consults her chart. 

“There’s no one else coming for him?” Daveed feels a pang deep in his stomach. 

“No. I’m it.”  
___

Walking into the sterile white room with tubes and wires hanging is when Daveed’s stomach finally rebels. He turns, walks back to the hall in a staggering line, leans over a trash can next to the reception desk and vomits until he’s gasping and his eyes are stinging. 

Rafa. So damn small in that rolling bed, skin a shade not found in nature, chest barely rising. Daveed sinks to his knees, holds his head. He’s not meant to do this. Where’s Rafa’s mother? Where is anyone, anyone else, because Daveed can’t do this. 

He’s vaguely aware of the nurse’s hand on his back, of her murmuring in a comforting cadence as she rubs his shoulder in small circles. Daveed wants to sob. He can’t. 

“It’s just- I’m just... hungover, it’s fine.” Jesus. He’s not an adult. He can’t be here, stinking like vodka. 

“Take your time. You can be with him later, it’s okay, take your time.” Daveed nods, swipes at his mouth with the back of a hand. She hands him a towel, gestures at the water fountain down the hall. He gets a drink when he can stand, feels the chill in his dry mouth. 

“I think I’m ready.” He could never be ready. 

The nurse leads him to the chair next to the bed, and Daveed is glad for it because he can feel his knees going weak and useless as he looks down at corpselike (Daveed hates himself for thinking it. It’s the image he had back in the apartment. Rafa going cold and lifeless and blue) Rafael swaddled in white sheets.

“He’s breathing?” Daveed asks the nurse, because it doesn’t look like he is.

“Yes, he is.” She says, adjusts a tube that’s going into Rafa’s side. Daveed looks down. “Look,” the nurse murmurs, points at a screen hanging over Rafa’s head. “there’s a monitor. You can watch his breaths and heart rate, if that helps. It’ll beep if they dip, and someone will come in right away.” That does help. Daveed fixes his eyes on the monitor so he doesn’t have to see Rafael like this. 

It feels wrong, an invasion of privacy, to watch him in this state. Though, Daveed supposes there isn’t much that’s still private between them. But still. Still. Daveed doesn’t look at the strip of bare skin of Rafa’s chest where the tube disappears.

Daveed doesn’t think he’s having the right thoughts for this situation. He doesn’t know what the right thoughts are. He thinks he’s in shock, because all he keeps thinking is that this can’t be Rafa, not really. But, there’s that mole on his cheek and the cleft in his chin, and yeah, yeah. This is happening. 

“I’ll leave you alone.” The nurse startles Daveed out of his stupor. He thanks her, doesn’t watch her leave and pull the curtained door behind her. 

He still doesn’t know what happened, and that strikes him as wrong and strange. But, protocol, he guesses. Or, an attempt to stave off another bout of vomiting. 

Daveed finally lets himself look Rafa over, not touching him but scrutinizing, searching for any visible cuts, bruises, anything that could’ve landed him here. There’s nothing. Just a pale, too-skinny face (was he eating in that week he was gone? Oh god) with deep purple marks under the closed eyes, lids crisscrossed with veins. 

“Rafa.” Daveed whispers. He doesn’t know what to say. “Man. You need to live. It’ll suck ass if you don’t live.” That’s a stupid Rafa term, and Daveed hates how much he’s rubbed off on him. He hates how scared he is. “C’mon. Just... live, Raf.” 

Daveed’s silent, Rafa sleeping. Daveed watches the monitor, a green light flashing in time to Rafa’s heartbeat. He jumps up from the chair when a man in a white doctor’s coat walks by the window, desperate for some, any, information about what happened and what they need to do and when in the hell Rafael will wake up. 

“Excuse me!” He has to raise his voice a bit, as the doctor is already down the hall by the time he reaches the door. But he turns, and Daveed waves a hand. The doctor walks back, and when he’s a few feet away Daveed can read the name stitched in blue on the chest. Dr. Odom, the one who called, the one who gave the news. 

“Mr. Diggs?” He asks, and Daveed wonders how he knew before realizing that he’s just burst from a room with Rafael’s name on a whiteboard on the door, and he’s the only visitor. He nods, takes the hand Dr. Odom offers to shake. 

“Can you- I don’t really know... anything? What happened?” The doctor smiles, and just his presence is calming. He has dark eyes and smooth, deep skin, scalp shaved down shiny. 

“Of course. Let’s go sit, in the room.” 

Daveed sinks back into his chair, eyes immediately shooting back up to the monitor. 156 bpm. That’s good, he thinks. Dr. Odom sits on the stool to the other side of the bed, looks over the multitude of beeping machines and jots down a few notes on a chart. Daveed watches, tapping his foot almost unconsciously. 

“I’m sure you’re very confused, I’m sorry.” Daveed nods, pushes back his hair with a sweating palm. 

“What happened to him?” They both ignore the crack in his voice. 

“We got the call pretty early this morning, that an ambulance had picked him up and was coming our way. Apparently he was asleep on a park bench, and a woman jogging tried to wake him but couldn’t, so she called 911.” Daveed slumps forward, head to his fists on his knees. Breathing as even and deep as he can. This is his fault. If he’d fought harder to bring Rafa home, he wouldn’t have been living on a goddamn park bench. Oh god. Oh god. 

“What’s wrong with him? Why wouldn’t he wake up?” Daveed isn’t trying to keep the tremor out of his voice anymore. He runs his palms down his thighs, over and over. 

“We did some tests, and it turns out that he got an infection from his fracture. We didn’t have a record of a follow-up check that might’ve caught that earlier.” Daveed shudders. Fuck. Fuck.

“Oh god, god, that’s my fault. I meant to bring him in. I didn’t think- I don’t, fuck, is he okay? Will he be okay? What’s the infection, wh-”

Dr. Odom leans forward, puts a hand on the hand of Daveed’s that he hasn’t even realized had traveled to the bed.

“Listen. Daveed. Shit happens sometimes. It isn’t your fault.” It’s strange to hear the seemingly straight-laced doctor swear, and somehow it puts Daveed just a bit at ease. “The infection is called osteomyelitis.” Daveed can’t even wrap his head around that word. “Its an infection of a bone caused by some bacteria getting into his cuts after the fracture.” Daveed is trying to understand him. 

“But- I’ve broken, like, five bones and I never...” 

“It’s rare, but it does happen.” The doctor says in that soothing cadence. Is that something they teach you in medical school?

“So, what are you gonna... do?” Daveed is so, so tired all of a sudden. He looks at Rafa in the bed, looks at the fluid flowing into his arm. 

“Well, the good news is that we have him on antibiotics already. Hopefully that’ll knock it out pretty quickly.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Daveed asks, already knowing the answer. 

“That would most likely mean surgery to resolve it.” Yeah. Surgery. Which Daveed is just now realizing he has no way in hell to pay for. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Dr. Odom must see the look on his face. “But don’t worry about it, okay? I’m pretty positive the antibiotics will take care of everything.” Daveed nods, still worrying about it. How could he not? 

“Anything else you’re wondering?”

“Did he wake up? At all?” Because, if he woke up, that’s a good sign. Right? It’s a good sign that he’ll wake up again. 

“Yes, briefly. He was in a lot of pain.” Daveed wonders, suddenly, what his hand looks like. If it’s swollen, oozing pus. If he was in pain for long, if it was awful. God. “We gave him something to put him to sleep pretty quickly. We got his information from his license, in his wallet. That’s how we found his other records, and your name.”

So Rafael hadn’t asked for him. Daveed can feel his chest deflating, even though it doesn’t matter, even though all that matters is that Daveed is here and that Rafa is still alive. But.

“Okay. Okay, thank you.” Daveed doesn’t have it in him to talk anymore, to hear anything else. 

“You’re welcome. There’s a call button, if you need anything. I’ll be around, Daveed. Don’t worry about him.”

“Thank you.” 

And the room is silent again, save for the whirring and beeping of the machinery. Daveed stands, walks the foot or two to the side of the bed to look down at Rafael laying there. Daveed finds his hand through the sheet, the uninjured one, and squeezes it. 

“You should’ve come home, you bastard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes! And my search history is all this wild medical stuff.


End file.
